Congressional candidate and former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander condemned social media posts from a former top campaign consultant that promoted Hamas, Iran and anti-Israel conspiracy theories — but refused to explain how he came to hire him in the first place.

Lander, challenging Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) with Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s backing, stressed that he had cut ties with ‘Hot Girls for Zohran’ co-founder Kaif Gilani after Jewish Insider presented him with a raft of the activist’s posts to X. These included retweets of a Holocaust revisionist suggesting Israeli involvement in 9/11 and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a video of Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar and numerous pro-Hamas and pro-Iran statements, as well as original posts attacking Democratic figures and law enforcement.

Gilani’s firm, Brain Child LLC, had been the highest-paid consultant to Lander’s House campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records.

“As soon as I became aware of those tweets — which I really did find extremely offensive — I ended the contract with Brain Child immediately,” Lander told JI, a self-described progressive Zionist and outspoken Israel critic, at a press availability on Thursday.

But Lander repeatedly refused to say how he came to hire Gilani, whose background is in finance, to handle his “Website and social media,” as his campaign disclosures show.

“I’m not interested in extending your story,” said Lander, when pressed.

But he did maintain that he never received any referral for Gilani from Mamdani, his staff or his campaign. “Hot Girls for Zohran” was a social media, merchandising and volunteer canvassing operation run independently of the now-mayor’s official election effort, although Mamdani did pose for photos with Gilani and his co-founder, and appeared alongside other people — including model Emily Ratajkowski — wearing the group’s signature T-shirts.

“Did anyone from the mayor’s team refer them? The answer is no,” Lander said.

Earlier in the day, Mamdani himself refused to condemn the content of Gilani’s social media output, which also included attacks against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).